Cart Upsells replaces your theme's cart drawer with one Atlas controls, so you can put offers in front of customers at the moment they are already committed to buying. It can carry product upsells, a free shipping progress bar, shipping protection, subscription upgrades, a discount code field, payment icons, and a countdown announcement.
In this article:
What the customer sees
A slide-out cart drawer, opening when they add something. Instead of a bare list of items and a checkout button, it can show a progress bar towards free shipping, one or two recommended products they can add in a tap, a shipping protection toggle, a discount code field, and trust icons near the checkout button.
Everything is optional. A drawer with nothing enabled is simply a tidier cart.
The modules you can add
Module | What it does |
Announcement bar | A message at the top, optionally with a reservation countdown |
Reward progress bar | Shows how far the customer is from free shipping or a discount |
Product upsells | Recommended products they can add without leaving the cart |
Shipping protection | An optional paid add-on protecting the order |
Subscription upgrades | Lets a customer turn a one-time item into a subscription |
Discount codes | A field for entering a code, with live validation |
Progressive gift | Rewards unlocked as the cart grows |
Payment icons | Trust icons near the checkout button |
Each can be switched on or off independently, and each has its own text and colour settings.
One active drawer at a time
⚠️ You can build as many cart drawers as you like, but only one can be active. When Active, that cart upsell is shown in the cart drawer, and you can only have one active at a time.
Activating a second drawer deactivates the first. If you want to compare two versions, use A/B testing rather than trying to run both.
What it needs from your theme
The Atlas Cart Upsells app embed, switched on for your published theme. Without it, your theme's own cart drawer keeps working and the Atlas drawer never appears.
If it is off you will see the banner Atlas Custom Cart Drawer is not enabled on your published theme. with instructions to activate and save.
When to use it
💡 The cart is the highest-intent moment in your store. Someone with an item in their cart has already decided to buy something, so an offer there converts far better than the same offer on a product page.
Good reasons to use it:
Your average order value is close to a free shipping threshold you already offer
You have a low-cost companion product that suits almost any order
You want to offer shipping protection as an add-on
Your theme's cart drawer is plain and you want more control over it
Less compelling:
Very low traffic, where you will not learn anything from the numbers for months
A store where almost every order is a single high-value item with no natural companion
You already run another cart drawer app, since only one can own the cart
What Atlas does not do here
It does not create your discounts. The reward progress bar shows customers their progress towards free shipping, but the free shipping itself has to exist as an automatic discount in your Shopify admin. Atlas shows the bar; Shopify applies the reward.
It does not create subscription plans. Subscription upgrades only appear for products that already have selling plans from a subscription app.
It cannot pre-add anything to the cart. Shopify does not allow apps to add items to a cart on the customer's behalf, which is why shipping protection cannot be enabled by default and must be toggled on by the customer.
Limits and billing
Limit | Detail |
Active drawers | One at a time |
Cart drawer apps | Only one app can own the cart, so another cart drawer app will conflict |
Included usage | 250 cart drawer orders per billing cycle |
Cart drawer orders are one of the three things Atlas charges usage on. Beyond 250 orders in a cycle you move into a higher tier with a fixed monthly charge. Excluded orders, such as cash on delivery and refunded orders, do not count. See Atlas usage rates and tiers.